Walter Stamm, pelvic disease pioneer, dies

Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times

Published
4:00 am PST, Sunday, December 27, 2009

Dr. Walter Stamm, whose discoveries on the diagnosis and treatment of urinary tract infections and of the relationship between chlamydia and pelvic inflammatory disease saved thousands of women from infertility, died Dec. 14 at his home in Seattle. He was 64 and had been battling melanoma.

Dr. Stamm "was one of the giants ... who really transformed diagnosis and treatment of genitourinary infections, particularly those that result in pelvic inflammatory diseases," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which funded much of his work. "There are a lot of happy mothers out there now because of the work of Walt Stamm."

Pelvic inflammatory disease is a generic term for an inflammation of the uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries, typically caused by a bacterial infection. An estimated 1 million American women suffer from it each year and about 100,000 become infertile or suffer ectopic pregnancies. The numbers were much higher, however, before Stamm began his research.

Pelvic inflammatory disease, or PID, is particularly insidious because it can lead to infertility or other problems even in the absence of overt symptoms. Dr. Stamm demonstrated that many cases of PID are caused by the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis. He developed a test for the organism and, in a 1996 paper, demonstrated that screening women for the bacterium could sharply reduce the incidence of PID.

Such screening programs were subsequently widely introduced in the United States and Europe.

When Dr. Stamm began his research, clinicians frequently used high doses of antibiotics for long periods to cure sexually transmitted diseases. Through a series of what Fauci termed "well thought out, methodical clinical trials," Stamm demonstrated that most such infections could be cured with lower doses of drugs for shorter periods.

Shorter treatment regimens and lower doses are crucial to minimize side effects of the drugs and to prevent the bacteria from acquiring resistance, Fauci said.

Dr. Stamm was a prolific author, writing more than 350 research articles, 92 reviews, 105 book chapters and 11 books. He was a star athlete in high school and at Stanford and had a lifelong passion for tennis. His wife of 42 years, Peggy, died in 2008. He is survived by two daughters, Hillary of Los Angeles and Lindsay of Portland; and a son, Andrew of Seattle.